The Invincible

THE FIRST

Smouldering, slippery blackness enveloped him. He was choking. He desperately tried to free himself from the invisible ropes that bound him. He wanted to shake them off but kept ensnaring himself in an inextricable net. His scream was caught in his swollen throat. In vain he searched for a weapon. He was naked. One more time he strained every fiber of his being to choke out a cry for help.

Some ear-shattering noise tore him out of his sleep, Rohan jumped off his cot, aware only of the darkness around him and the endless ringing of the alarm signal. This was no longer a dream. He switched on the light, slipped into his protective suit and rushed out into the corridor.

Men were crowded in front of the elevators on all floors. Only the constant ringing of the signals could be heard. On the walls the word alarm glowed in big red letters.

He ran to the command center. The astrogator, dressed in his usual day uniform, stood in front of the big videoscreen. “I’ve already given the all-clear signal,” he said calmly. “It’s only raining. Look here, Rohan, what a beautiful sight!”

Indeed, a spray of innumerable sparks covered the videoscreen, which showed the upper part of the nocturnal sky. Raindrops were falling from a great height, spattering against the invisible protective shield of the energy field that surrounded the Invincible like an overturned bowl. Upon impact the drops of water instantaneously changed into microscopic fiery explosions, bathing the whole landscape with glittering light that resembled a hundredfold intensified display of the Northern Lights.

“The automats should have been better programed,” said Rohan softly. He felt wide awake now. “I have to tell Terner to eliminate the instructions for annihilation. Otherwise every handful of sand that comes drifting against the energy dome will jerk us out of our sleep.”

“Let’s assume this was nothing but a fire drill,” replied the astrogator, who seemed to be in an unexpectedly good mood. “It’s four o’clock in the morning now. You can go back to sleep, Rohan.”

“To be frank with you, I don’t feel in the least bit like it. How about you?”

“I’m not sleepy at all. All I ever need is four hours of rest. After sixteen years of space travel not much has remained from the sleeping pattern I used to have back on Earth. Rohan, I’ve been trying to figure out the maximum security for our search troops. It’s too cumbersome for them to drag energo-robots along everywhere they go in order to set up protective screens. What do you think about that?”

“Why not send along a personal emitter for each member of the group? No, that wouldn’t do the trick either. You can’t touch anything if you’re surrounded by the protective bubble — you know what that’s like. And if you shorten the field radius too much, you risk nasty burns. I’ve been through that before.”

“I’ve even considered not sending any men out at all, but using remote-controlled robots instead,” confessed Horpach. “Of course that would only work for a few hours, or one day at best. But I believe we are going to stay here for a while.”

“What are your plans?”

“Each research team will have a base of operations, protected by an energy field. But there must be a certain freedom of mobility, otherwise we won’t obtain any useful results because of all the protective measures. But only under one condition: any man who works outside the protective screen must have a shielded companion immediately behind who will observe him. You must never lose sight of anyone under any circumstance; that is absolute law for our stay on Regis III.”

“Which group will I be assigned to?”

“Would you like to work at the Condor? Or would you rather explore the desert or the ‘city’? It’s up to you.”

“I’ll take the ‘city,’ astrogator. I still think that’s where we will find the solution to this mystery.”

“Possibly. Tomorrow — no, today, the sun’s coming up already — you will take the same group of men who accompanied you yesterday. I’ll send along a few Arctanes. Several hand laser weapons wouldn’t be a bad idea either. I have the impression that it is effective from a short range.”

“What do you mean by ‘it’?”

“If only I knew. Well, don’t forget to take along a field kitchen. You’ll want to be completely independent so you can carry on without having to count on supplies from the spaceship.”

The red disk of the sun hardly supplied any heat as it rolled across the firmament, the shadows of the grotesque structures grew longer and fused. The wind whirled the wander dunes between the metal pyramids from place to place. Standing on the roof of a heavy caterpillar truck, Rohan peered through his field glasses and observed Gralew and Chen, who were busy outside the protective screen investigating something at the foot of one of the black honey-combs. His portable searchlight hung from a strap around his neck. The strap cut uncomfortably into his skin. Without ever letting the two men out of his sight, he tried to adjust the strap, pulling it away from his neck. The plasma burner in Chen’s hand was sparkling like a tiny diamond. From inside the truck came a radio signal, calling at regular intervals. Rohan did not turn his head. He heard the driver answer the call.

“Navigator! Orders from the astrogator! We’re to return at once!” yelled Jarg excitedly and stuck his head out of the turret hatch.

“Did you say return? Why?”

“I don’t know. They’ve been sending the return signal constantly — EV four times already.”

“EV? Damn it, my neck feels stiff! All right, let’s get a move on. Give me that microphone and get out the blinker signals.”

Ten minutes later all the men who had been working in the outer zone were back inside the vehicles. Rohan urged his small column to hurry as fast as it could over the hilly terrain. Blank, functioning now as wireless operator, suddenly held out the earphones to him. Rohan climbed down into the steel belly of the vehicle, where it smelled of hot plastic. Over the humming of the ventilators, whose air blasts ruffled up his hair, he listened in to the exchange of radio messages between Gallagher’s group in the western desert and the Invincible.

A thunderstorm seemed to be brewing. Ever since that morning the barometers had indicated low air pressure, but not until this moment did flat, dark blue clouds creep up on the horizon. High above was the clear sky. The atmospheric disturbance kept increasing, until the static noise grew so strong in the earphones that communication could take place only by Morse Code signals.

Rohan intercepted a group of coded messages. He had come in on the middle of the transmission, however, and did not grasp what it was all about. He only understood that Gallagher’s group was also returning at top speed and that a red alert had been called on the Invincible. Even the physicians had been ordered to man their stations.

“Alert for the physicians,” Rohan said to Ballmin and Gralew, who looked at him expectantly. “An accident, but surely nothing serious. Maybe there was a landslide somewhere and someone was buried under it for a while.”

He mentioned this because he had been told that Gallagher’s men were supposed to scout a certain area and make geological excavations there. But in his heart he did not really believe that it was a matter of an ordinary accident.

They were less than four miles from the spaceship, but the other group evidently had been called back much earlier, for when they sighted the steep dark silhouette of the Invincible they came across fresh tracks made by the caterpillar drive vehicles. The impressions in the sand could have been no more than thirty minutes old, otherwise they would have been wiped out by the strong wind.

They approached the perimeter of the energy dome and called the command center to open a pathway for them. They had to wait surprisingly long for an answer. Finally the blue light signals appeared and they were let into the protected area. The group from the Condor had already arrived. Then they and not Gallagher’s people had been admitted inside before them. Several trucks were parked next to the ramp and near the drive entrance; men ran about aimlessly, sinking into the sand up to their knees. Automats blinked with their searchlights.

Dusk was falling. Rohan did not know what to make of this chaotic scene. Suddenly a bright ray of light flared up high, transforming the rocket into a giant lighthouse. Far back in the desert, the searchlights had pinpointed a column of lights that danced crazily back and forth as if an entire military convoy were approaching. Once again the blue lights flared up, marking the entrance to the energy field to let in Gallagher’s party. Hardly had the vehicles come to a stop when the patrol jumped to the ground. A second searchlight rolled down the ramp, and a small procession passed through the narrow lane between the parked tracks, bearing a man on a stretcher.

As they went by Rohan, he pushed past the men in front of him, then stopped in his tracks. For a moment he really believed an accident had taken place, for the man on the litter had been tightly strapped down. He kept struggling against his bonds, and they creaked under the strain. At the same time, a terrible whine rose from his open mouth.

The group continued to follow the path marked by the cone of the kleig light. The procession drew farther and farther away, but he could still hear clearly the nonhuman howling, unlike anything he had ever heard before, as he stood there alone in the dark. The white spot with the figures grew smaller, slid up the ramp and disappeared in the darkly gaping hole of the loading hatch. Rohan called out to some of the men, asking them what had happened, but they did not know any more than he did, since they belonged to the Condor troop.

Quite some time passed before he regained his composure and could find his bearings again. The column of vehicles began to move and drove noisily up the ramp. Lights came on at the elevator; gradually the small crowd waiting down below dwindled. Rohan was one of the last to take the elevator up. With him were the heavily laden Arctanes, whose imperturbable calm irritated him to an irrational degree. Inside the spacecraft, the telephones and informators rang constantly; the walls were still lit up by alarm signals for the physicians.

Soon the warning lamps went out, the corridors were empty. Part of the crew went down to the mess hall. Rohan heard snatches of conversation in passageways and the sounds of steps disappearing in the distance. A tardy Arctane stomped toward the robot section.

Finally they all had dispersed. Rut Rohan remained as if paralyzed, utterly despairing of ever comprehending the scene he had just witnessed, for it came to him in a flash of insight that there simply was no explanation and could never be one.”

“Rohan!”

Gaarb stood before him, wrenching him back to reality.

“Oh, it’s you, doctor! Did you see it too? Who in the world was that?”

“Kertelen.”

“What? I can’t believe it!”

“I saw him almost until the end.”

“The end?”

“Yes. I was with him,” said Gaarb, his voice unnaturally quiet. Rohan saw the reflections of the hall lamps in Gaarb’s glasses.

“Was that with the expedition that went to the desert?” Rohan wanted to know.

“Yes.”

“And what happened to him?”

“Gallagher had picked that spot according to his seismographic probes. We penetrated a labyrinth of narrow, winding canyons.” Gaarb spoke haltingly, as if he were talking to himself and wanted to visualize once more the exact course of events. “Soft, washed-out rock of organic origin, full of grottoes and caves. We had to leave our trucks behind… We walked in single file, keeping close together. Eleven men. The ferrometers indicated the presence of large masses of iron. That was what we were looking for. Kertelen thought some kind of machines might be hidden there.”

“Yes. He told me something about that. And then?”

“In one of the caves he found a machine, under a surface layer of mud. In the same cave we even found some stalactites and stalagmites.”

“So you discovered a machine.”

“Not the kind you would imagine. It was a wreck. Not in the least rusty — it must have been constructed of some rustproof alloy — but the thing was corroded, half burned, nothing but a wreck.”

“Perhaps there are others as well —?”

“But this machine was at least three hundred thousand years old!”

“How do you know?”

“We found deposits of limestone from the water that had dripped down from the stalactites on the ceiling. Gallagher himself calculated the approximate age of three hundred thousand years by figuring the rate of evaporation, the time it would take for a stalagmite of a certain size to form. By the way, can you imagine what the machine looked like? Almost like the ruins!”

“Then it’s not a computer?”

“No. It must have been mobile, but it didn’t have two legs. And it wasn’t like a crab, either. Besides, we didn’t have time to make a thorough examination, because just then…”

“What happened?”

“I made a count of my crew at regular intervals. In fact, I stayed back in the energy field in order to watch them — you know about the commander’s orders. But they were all wearing masks, and consequently they all looked alike, especially since their colored protective suits were completely caked with mud. Suddenly I was one man short. I called them together and we began our search. Kertelen had been so pleased about his find; apparently he had continued his search alone. I simply assumed he had lost his way in one of the side gullies. The canyon is full of detours, all short, level and well lit. Suddenly he came around the corner. He was already in that state. Nygren was with us. At first he thought it was a heat stroke.”

“And what is it?”

“He’s unconscious. That is, not exactly. He can walk, move every part of his body; but it’s impossible to communicate with him. He’s also lost the power of speech. Did you hear his voice?”

“Yes, I did.”

“He seems to have calmed down somewhat — it was much worse before. He didn’t recognize any of us. This struck us as the most horrible thing at first. I tried calling out to him, ‘Kertelen, where are you?’ But he walked by me, as if he were completely deaf, went straight through our group and then up the canyon in such a manner that we all got gooseflesh. He was totally changed. He didn’t react to our calls, so we had to catch him — you can’t imagine what a job that was. Finally we were forced to tie him up; otherwise we would never have been able to transport him back to the base.”

“And what do the doctors say?”

“They spout Latin phrases, as usual, but they don’t know anything either. Nygren and Sax are in with the commander. You can find out more from them.”

Gaarb walked away heavily, his head bent to one side as usual. Rohan stepped into the elevator to get to the command center. The room was empty, but as he passed by the cartographical cabins, he could hear Sax’s voice coming through the door that was slightly ajar. He entered the room.

“Total amnesia. At least that’s what it looks like,” the neuro-physiologist was saying. He had his back turned to Rohan and examined an X-ray picture he held in his hand. The astrogator sat at his desk, the open log book in front of him. His hand rested on one of the bookshelves packed tightly with rolled-up star maps. He remained silent as Sax slowly put the X-ray film back into a brown manila envelope.

“Amnesia, but this is a special case. Not only does he not remember who he is, but he has also lost the ability to read, write and speak. What we’re faced with here is complete disintegration, total destruction of personality. Nothing has been retained except for primitive reflexes. He is capable of walking, and he can eat, but only if someone puts the food into his mouth. He won’t reject it, but — ”

“Can he see and hear?”

“Yes, he can. But he doesn’t understand what it is he sees. He cannot distinguish between people and objects.”

“And his reflexes?”

“Normal. Only his brain has been affected. Apparentently all traces of his memory have been wiped out with one stroke.”

“Then the man from the Condor was also — ”

“Yes. Now I am sure of it. It was the same thing.”

“I’ve seen one other case like this,” whispered the astrogator. He looked in the direction of Rohan but did not seem to notice him. “That was out in space.”

“Oh, yes, of course! Why didn’t I think of it before?” exclaimed the neurophysiologist in a high voice. “Amnesia due to a magnetic shock, wasn’t that it?”

“Yes.”

“I never saw a case of it. I’m only familiar with it through the literature. Didn’t that happen a long time ago when strong magnetic fields were used to fly at high speeds?”

“Yes. That is to say, only under specific conditions. The intensity of the field is far less important than the gradient and the intensity of the change. Nowadays, if large gradients occur in space — and occasionally we encounter some pretty stiff ones — then our gauges will register them at great distances. This could not be done in the old days.”

“True,” concurred the physician. “That’s quite right. Ammerhatten made similar experiments with dogs and cats. He exposed them to enormous magnetic fields until they lost their memory.”

“Yes, it had to do with the brain’s response to electrical stimuli.”

“But in this case we not only have Gaarb’s report. We’ve got confirmation from his men as well.” Sax was thinking out loud. “Powerful magnetic fields. Must have been hundreds of thousands of Gauss?”

“That wouldn’t be enough. You’d need millions for that,” the astrogator answered in a gruff voice. Only now did he become aware of Rohan’s presence.

“Come in and close the door behind you!”

“Millions? Wouldn’t our instruments here on board detect such a field?”

“Only under certain conditions,” replied Horpach. “If it were concentrated in a small area, if it were the size of this glove here, and if in addition it were screened off from the outside…”

“In short, if Kertelen had stuck his head between the poles of a gigantic electromagnet — ”

“Even that wouldn’t be sufficient. The field would have to oscillate in a certain frequency.”

“But there was nothing but rubble up there. There were no machines and no magnets, nothing but eroded ravines, gravel and sand.”

“And caves,” Horpach added meaningfully.

“And caves. Do you believe somebody pulled him into one of those caves and that there was a magnet in it? No, that’s — ”

“How else can you account for it?” asked the commander, as if he had grown tired of this discussion.

The physician remained silent.

At 3:40 A.M. the shrill ringing of the alarm signals sounded throughout the Invincible. The men awoke with a start, dressed and hurried to their stations, swearing as they went. Five minutes after the alarm signal began, Rohan entered the command center. The astrogator had not yet arrived. Rohan quickly walked up to the video-screen. The dark night was lit up brightly in the east by countless white flashes of lightning. It seemed as though a meteorite shower emanated from a radiant point and was attacking the rocket.

Rohan checked the dials of the field control instruments. He had programed the computers himself and knew they would not react to rain or sandstorms.

Something — it was too dark to make out what it was — came rushing from the direction of the desert and scattered in a rain of fire. The discharges occurred at the surface of the energy dome. The mysterious missiles bounced off the shield and flew back, rapidly fading flames along a parabolic curve. Still other flames slid down the curvature of the vaulted field. The ridges of the dunes became momentarily visible, then sank back again into the darkness.

The hands on the dials flicked sluggishly. The system of the Diracs needed only a relatively small effort to ward off this mysterious bombardment. Rohan heard the approaching steps of the commander as he looked across to the spectrometer installation.

“Nickel, iron, manganese, beryllium, titanium,” the astrogator read the results off the brightly illuminated scale. He stood next to Rohan. “What I wouldn’t give to be able to see with my own eyes what’s going on there.”

“It’s raining metallic particles,” said Rohan slowly. “They must be quite small to judge by their discharges.”

“I’d like to get a close look at them,” said the astrogator. “How about it? Shall we risk it?”

“You mean switch off the energy field?”

“Yes. For a fraction of a second. We’ll catch a few particles inside the protected zone, the rest will be repelled when we switch our energy field back on.”

Rohan did not answer for a long time.

“Well, it’s conceivable…” he finally said.

But before the commander had time to step over to the instrument panel, the flickering flames died down just as rapidly as they had flared up. Stark darkness reigned again, the kind that is known only on moonless planets that circle far from the star clusters of the galaxy.

“No luck this time,” muttered Horpach. His hand rested on the main switch. He remained standing for another minute, then nodded briefly in Rohan’s direction and left the room. The all-clear signal sounded throughout all levels of the spaceship.

Rohan sighed, glanced once again at the videoscreens: there was nothing on the image but pitch black darkness. Then he went back to bed.